Many life experiences feature rites of passage that help a group transition from one phase to the next. These rites aren’t always pleasant, but they are essential for training us for the next stage in life. Most of us enjoy driving, but few relish days spent in driver’s training. High school football was fun, but summer’s two-a-days were not. Our affection for our first paycheck surpassed our love for the first Monday we awoke to the blare of an early alarm. We endure the rites because they put us into position to flourish during our experiences.

The memory of many students of the Harding School of Theology is etched with the red ink of one common rite of passage: the 5990 Advanced Theological Research course. The iconic Annie May Lewis served as the chief architect of the class, but since 1983 it has been the craft of her prized-mentee, Don Meredith.

from a 1977 slide show

Last week, head librarian Don Meredith received the Teacher Achievement Award from Harding University. The award, no doubt, honored his time spent teaching the class, which he has offered nearly every semester since 1983. But it also honored the way that he has used the class as a rite of passage into the rest of the program. When students reflect about their time at HST, they often share stories of their term papers from that first class, which are still wet with red ink from Meredith’s famous multi-colored pen. Like the soldiers who fought with Henry V on St. Crispin’s Day, survivors of 5990 can count themselves the “few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

This band of brothers and sisters thanks you, Mr. Meredith, for giving us the tools we needed to become the students we wanted to be.

Church leaders need help finding the best resources as quickly and inexpensively as possible. Ministers build libraries not as a hobby but to have the right tools in hand when needed. Elders, deacons and ministry leaders may not acquire big collections but still often need help finding the best titles on various subjects.

Often, however, it is difficult to find the right tool. With so many books in print, how do you choose the best one? How does this one compare to that one? Is there a guide? Also, time is at a premium. It may take hours to read through the online reviews, and Amazon’s recommendations may be unrelated to your needs. What about expense? If you find the right text, where is the best deal?

WHAT IS LIFEANDLEADERSHIP.COM?

LifeandLeadership.com is an annotated, interactive guide to church leadership resources. More than 100 ministry resource guides are organized by topic. Each guide contains a categorized menu of books and resources, often in recommended order, with thumbnail descriptions and links to separate book pages for each title. Each book Living and Leading page features a summary and comparison to similar resources, followed by the publisher’s information and author biography. It displays a picture of the book and direct links to several online bookstores for comparison shopping. The book pages are also cross-referenced to related resources.

LifeandLeadership.com is not a blog on the latest and greatest titles. It is current and, in most cases, will list the newer books. The purpose is not so much to feature new books as to categorize them for honest comparison with others on the same subjects. Also, the site does not review in the technical sense. It briefly summarizes and reflects on the practical benefit of each title. Finally, the site is not the final answer to every church leadership need.

Gupton says, “I do not have all the answers, but I am good at knowing where to go for what. The site puts this information into a usable format. If it helps leaders to be more effective and confident, it serves its purpose.”

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This post is an abridged form of an article in the Winter 2013 issue of The Bridge, HST’s quarterly newsletter. You may read the full text of this and other articles and subscribe to The Bridge electronically here.